First year Ph.D. student at the Biophysical Engineering (BPE) Group, Jithin Jose, won 2nd prize for his presentation at the 2nd Dutch BioMedical Engineering Conference (Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands - January 22-23, 2009).

Jithin presented his work on the development of a miniaturized computed tomography imager based on the photoacoustic principle. The technique uses light to image deep in tissue while retaining ultrasound-like resolutions. The instrument is intended to image small animals for detection of tumours with the help of gold nanoparticle contrast agents. Such imagers are important for increasing our fundamental understanding of cancer progression and in discovering new contrast and therapeutic agents against the disease. Jithin also explained the image reconstruction algorithm used in photoacoustic computed tomography developed by co-author René Willemink. Finally, Jithin showed preliminary results of imaging phantoms carrying gel spheres embedded with gold nanospheres.

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